Illinois Fighting Illini

The Fighting Illini are the athletic teams of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The university offers 10 men's and 11 women's varsity sports and competes in the Big Ten Conference. The school’s most prominent athletic facilities are Memorial Stadium (football) and the State Farm Center (basketball). The Fighting Illini lay claim to more than 25 national championships. Mike Thomas is the university’s athletic director.

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For many sports fans, nestling into their seats at an arena to root for their team is a comfort zone of American sports tradition.
But for others, spectatorship is a quest.
"As a kid, my family would say, 'We don't have to spend a lot of money to...

Manny Rugamba has been called by Naperville Central football coach Mike Stine the most recruited athlete in school history.
But his college decision is in.
Rugamba, a senior wide receiver, committed to Iowa on Saturday in an unofficial visit to Iowa...

The Big Ten took center stage at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place hotel Thursday and Friday for its football preview extravaganza.
But it was at another Chicago hotel 120 years ago that the powerful athletic conference first took shape.
On Jan. 11,...

The Big Ten's new "1910" scheduling model is not rooted in donning leather helmets to face Carnegie Mellon.
Commissioner Jim Delany wants his conference to stand out by playing the nation's most rigorous schedules, beginning in 2016. The...

Tim Beckman was fired up Thursday.
Nothing new there. Every time the Illinois football coach steps up to a microphone, he goes into full rah-rah mode.
So it was as Big Ten media days opened at McCormick Place, with the league's coaches talking about...

As players transferred out of the University of Illinois women's basketball program this past season, then-associate head coach Mike Divilbiss may have had a feeling of deja vu.
His emotional, hard-line style has netted successful results over a nearly...

According to Tim Beckman, he has had a "great summer."The Illinois football coach took a 2,500-mile road trip from Champaign to Florida to Ohio with his wife. He enjoyed the team's June workouts. He took in Eagles practices in Philadelphia to...

In January 2012, shortly after being hired as the new Illinois football coach, Tim Beckman introduced himself to his players at Memorial Stadium wearing a blue suit with an orange tie.
He quickly tossed the suit coat to the side. Suits were not his...

Teddy Greenstein
Champion: Ohio State. As if having the most talent were not enough, the Buckeyes' Big Ten road games are against Indiana, Rutgers, Illinois and Michigan. Not exactly a Murderer's Row.
Runner-up: Wisconsin. While West Division foe...

Some SEC coaches used the conference's media days to gripe about the timing of NFL draft grades and their oh-so-rough schedules.
ACC coaches complained about Notre Dame's one-foot-in, one-foot-out Golden Child status.
The Big Ten coaches who gather...

Two Big Ten schools have offered him. One Big 12 team has as well.
Five days after an unofficial visit, an SEC school offered Mount Carmel incoming senior Steven Wirtel.
One of the Class of 2016's last remaining premier unsigned recruits from the...

Big Ten football … the stage is yours.
You have the nation talking about the epic quarterback battle between Ohio State's J.T. Barrett and Cardale Jones, the selfless shift to receiver by teammate Braxton Miller, the flaky genius of Michigan's Jim...

A look at Western Illinois University's 2015 football schedule reveals the Leathernecks will play their first road game of the season on Sept. 12 when they travel to Champaign to take on Illinois.
While it's a great opportunity for Western Illinois to...

A recent poll of Ohio State fans indicated that by a slim margin, more preferred to have Cardale Jones quarterback the Big Ten team this season than either Braxton Miller or J.T. Barrett. Jones received 33 percent, Miller 23 and Barrett 14.
...

Lake Forest senior Danny Carollo never has to look far for advice on how to become a better quarterback.
Carollo, entering his second year as the Scouts' starting quarterback, can ask his older brother, P.J., who also started for Lake Forest and played...

Jared Hiltzik has one more season of college tennis left at Illinois.
It's a fact the 2012 New Trier graduate said he can't believe.
"Crazy how fast it goes by," he said. "You don't realize it, really. Pretty scary. It feels like...

Chris Collins is making no small plans for his Northwestern basketball team.
Armed with a contract extension, a more experienced core of players and promising recruits, the third-year coach is tasked with improving on last season's 15-17 mark. He...

Justin Pierce didn't come out of nowhere.
The 6-foot-6 wing set Glenbard West's record for 3-pointers in a season as a sophomore then averaged better than 17 points a game as a junior.
He did all that without a lot of fanfare or buzz in the recruiting...

Football or basketball?
Right tackle or power forward?
Mid-major conference or the Big Ten?
Geneva incoming senior Loudon Vollbrecht is not your typical recruit, in football or basketball.
Regarding his college future, Vollbrecht has many options.
...

At a news conference introducing University of Illinois athletic director Mike Thomas four years ago, Chancellor Phyllis Wise lauded him as a man who could do it all.
"We have been able to find a man who cares about students as scholars,"...